A critical exposition of the argument of Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript

Abstract

Finding the key to what Kierkegaard means by "subjectivity" and the "truth" as subjectivity is a very difficult task. Unless one finds this key, the Postscript appears as either another piece of Christian apologetic (but more dogmatic and difficult than most) with a great deal of philosophical chaff, or, philosophically viewed, as nonsense. The greatest difficulty as I see it now is that the whole climate of modern thought is so objective that it is almost impossible to grasp the viewpoint which Kierkegaard presents as a relevant distinction within philosophy. In the chapters which follow I shall present what I believe to be the key to Kierkegaard's principle that "subjectivity is the truth" and then go on to discuss how the distinction thus made applies on the one hand to objective knowledge and on the other to the various attitudes which an individual may have in respect to his own personal existence.